FL-13: Buchanan to be seated

Time to catch up on the developments in the still-disputed Congressional election in Florida’s 13th District, which is still apparently haunted by the ghost of Katherine Harris. Though Democratic challenger Christine Jennings has filed an official election contest in Congress, her Republican opponent Vern Buchanan will be seated in January, with a review to come in the future.

A judge ruled Friday that congressional aspirant Christine Jennings has no right to examine the programming source code that runs the electronic voting machines at the center of a disputed Southwest Florida congressional race.

Democrats in Congress meanwhile, said they’d allow Republican Vern Buchanan to take the seat next Thursday, but with a warning that the inquiry wasn’t over and that his hold on it could be temporary.

The state has certified Buchanan the winner of the District 13 race by a scant 369 votes.

Although she could appeal, the ruling Friday from Circuit Judge William Gary prevents the Jennings camp from being able to use the programming code to try to show voting machines used in Sarasota County malfunctioned. Jennings claims that an unusually large number of undervotes – ballots that didn’t show a vote – recorded in the race implies the machines lost the votes.

Jennings still has a complaint filed, however, before Congress, which is the ultimate arbiter of who will fill the seat. The seat is being vacated by Rep. Katherine Harris, a Republican who unsuccessfully ran for the Senate.

“The House has the power to collect evidence and make a decision about who, if anyone, was duly elected to represent the people of the 13th district,” U.S. Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., said Friday before the judge’s ruling. Holt plans to make an official statement next week making it clear that by seating Buchanan, the House isn’t forfeiting the right to reverse that decision later.

Link via MyDD, who thinks this is the effective end of Jennings’ chances to get a new election.

The House Administration Committee is reviewing Jennings’s challenge under the Federal Contested Elections Act (PL 91-138), and the committee will decide whether to proceed with an investigation. The legal proceedings in Florida would provide information for the committee to decide if it wants to go forward.

Holt said his formal inquiry on the House floor, after the swearing-in of Nancy Pelosi as Speaker but before members are sworn in, will ensure that nothing the House does will prejudice either of those proceedings. He said he expects the parliamentarian to affirm his move without need of a vote.

“Under federal law, there is a procedure in place for reviewing contested elections. The House should do nothing to compromise or prejudice the case Ms. Jennings has before the Florida courts. I expect the evidence will show that the certification did not reflect the will of the voters and a re-vote is necessary,” he said at a Friday news conference.

Holt has been a leading proponent of election procedure overhauls and sponsored legislation in the 109th Congress that would require all voting systems to use or produce a voter-verified paper ballot so that electronic tallies can be independently verified.

Holt is pretty knowledgeable on this topic, and I’ll bet he finds some disturbing things. Given the politically charged nature of election contests, however, even with a Democratic majority I don’t think he’ll be able to get any reforms passed if the first action is to declare the FL-13 election invalid, however justified that may look to be. This is the sort of thing that really should be bipartisan, because it affects everyone. If it takes sacrificing this result to ensure better safeguards for everyone going forward, I think that’s a deal most people can live with. We’ll see what happens.